


One Day In September

by andrastes_grace



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Minor Chris Redfield/Jill Valentine, Post-Resident Evil 4, Romance, Sarcasm, Unhealthy Relationships, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-13 05:32:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrastes_grace/pseuds/andrastes_grace
Summary: Leon was woken by a phone call from Claire. Although, it wasn't actually 'waking' when the activity he'd been engaging in bore only a passing resemblance to sleep. He'd been in bed, his eyes had been closed and he'd been dreaming(oh yes, he had been dreaming. Dreams of blood and fire and a hand slipping from his)But it wasn't sleep.The 29th of September 2004 and two old friends meet for a drink.





	1. Leon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is there a canon date for RE4? For the purpose of this fic it's 'late August at somepoint'
> 
> EDIT: Nailed it. According to one of the manga that's EXACTLY when it's set.

Leon was woken by a phone call from Claire. Although, it wasn't actually 'waking' when the activity he'd been engaging in bore only a passing resemblance to sleep. He'd been in bed, his eyes had been closed and he'd been dreaming

(oh yes, he had been dreaming. Dreams of blood and fire and a hand slipping from his)

But it wasn't sleep.

Claire sounded as tired as he felt and there was a forced cheerfulness to her words which just made him more exhausted. They didn't reminisce, or talk about that day, or do anything which involved thinking about Raccoon City, and the things they'd both seen. They pretended - for a short while - that they were regular friends, who talked about regular things. Never mind the phone call was taking place at 5 am. They were just regular people, with a regular friendship. Claire talked about TerraSave and her brother. She talked about her brother's sort-of-but-not-quite girlfriend ('Everyone can see it. Except them.') She asked about Sherry, and talked about Steve. She only talked about Steve at this time of the year. She talked a lot about her bike, none of which Leon understood, and about Queen, which he did. He was always more comfortable listening, at least on this day. She ended it with what she always said,

"Next year we should try meeting up."

He replied with the same reply every year,

"Yeah, we should."

They wouldn't. That didn't matter.

 

Leon went to work. He spoke to Sherry. She was doing well, or that's what she told him. She was 18 and had lived through several lifetimes of trauma. He finished up his reports on Spain. All of them were notable for their absence of a woman in red.

He went home. Keys got dumped by the door, and his shoes were kicked off before he'd even crossed the threshold into his apartment. Leon headed straight to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle he'd left there for this moment.

He didn't bother with a glass, and drank straight from it as he made his way to the couch. He had no other plans for the night.

 

An hour later - maybe more, maybe less, he didn't care - Leon heard the door to his apartment open. The was a click of high heeled shoes against the floor, gaining volume as the intruder grew closer.

"Sorry," he said, "I didn't get you a card."

"Oh?" The figure was behind him, and a few more steps brought Ada Wong into view, "What's the occasion?"

"'Congratulations On The Anniversary Of Your Death'. I checked around, no one makes them."

"That's a shame. I can think of a few people I'd give one to."

The couch Leon was sitting on faced the window, offering a fantastic view of the city during daylight. It could easily sit two people, three if they didn't mind sitting close together. It had come with the apartment, as had most of the furniture. He hadn't got around to getting rid of it.

Ada sat on the arm rest, and rested her feet on the spare seat.

"Come on in," Leon said. "Make yourself comfortable."

Ada returned his glare with a smile, "Thank you. I shall."

Leon's response was to pass her the bottle. Ada accepted and gave the clear liquid a critical glare before taking a swig. She spluttered, face wrinkling in horror and disgust.

"God _fucking_ dammit, Rookie. Is this paint thinner?"

"You break into my apartment, you don't get to complain about my shitty booze. Hand it back."

"That's fair enough. And I'm not done." She took another drink, and shuddered. "That is horrifying."

"No complaining."

"That was an observation, not a complaint." She haded the bottle back.

"That's the first time I've seen you lose your cool over anything." Leon said. His apartment was dark, the only light came from the fading daylight outside.

"I'm just good at hiding it."

That was more honesty than he'd expected from Ada Wong. If he could trust she'd ever be honest with him. What could he even believe when it came from a woman who'd lied from the second they'd met? She wasn't looking at him. Out of the window, above him, her hands. Even in the near dark she wouldn't meet his eyes.

(but he was probably doing just a bad a job of pretending he wasn't trying to avoid looking at her)

"Part of my work is reading people, and learning how they'll act before they act. Politicians. Scientists. Naive, rookie cops. I don't like things not working out as they should. And I don't like complications." She held out her hand, and Leon passed the bottle back.

"Why are you here, Ada?" He'd asked her that back in Spain, and hadn't got an answer. Not until she pointed a gun at his head. He wondered if this night would end the same way.

"Can't a woman visit an old friend in peace, without an interrogation?"

"'Friend', right. Last time we met you stole a dangerous parasite at gunpoint and then left me on an island rigged to explode. What the hell do you call your enemies?"

"You know, now you mention it, that's not something I've ever had to think about before." She passed the bottle back to Leon and continued, "Besides, I left you a jet ski and three minutes. I had no doubt you'd make the best of them."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, I guess."

"And what's a little armed robbery between friends, anyway?"

"A felony?" Leon suggested, as he passed the bottle back to Ada. "A really good reason to stop speaking to you?"

Ada laughed. "A yes, to both of those." She looked critically at the decreased level of liquid in the bottle, and passed it back to Leon.  "And yet here we are," she said.

"Yup. Here we are."

In one movement, Ada shifted her feet off the cushion, and scooted into it herself. Her movements were less graceful than Leon was used to seeing. After another moment, she leant against him, resting her head on his shoulder.

Leon waited, wondering if his was a lead in to yet another time Ada would stab him in the metaphorical back. Instead, she said,

"If you're not going to drink that, handsome, then I will."

Leon passed the bottle back, and shifted his arm from under Ada, putting it around her and pulling her close.

A happy couple, watching the city and sharing a drink. Another lie, but he'd let himself pretend for just a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know exactly what Leon and Ada are drinking but it's probably one of those vodkas that has a warning not to drink it neat because it may cause burns.


	2. Ada

_Domestic._

The word wasn't really in Ada's vocabulary. Sure, she'd played the girlfriend plenty of times, and she'd even liked some of the men and women unlucky enough to fall for the well crafted personality she presented them with.  Like John. Good old John Clemens. Five minutes with the geeky Chinese scientist in glasses and he'd practically been ready to propose.

She hadn't thought about John in years. Had he died in the Spencer mansion, she wondered, or the city itself? Either way John hadn't been around to answer Luis Sera's call for help.

Lucky for her.

No, 'domestic' wasn't a word she'd use to describe herself. But yet here she was, curled up on a couch with Leon's arm around her sharing a bottle of foul tasting vodka. She could think of several better uses for it. Top of the list was stripping paint from the walls, closely followed by 'creating a molotov cocktail' but still it was... nice.  Another word she wasn't fond of using. Another 'complicated' word.  So mundane and banal and yet...

And yet capable of ruining her life.

Who had she been, the night she met Leon? The night she'd died and been born as someone she had no plans of being. She couldn't remember. John's concerned girlfriend? A repentant Umbrella scienist? An FBI agent? She always liked that one.

It didn't matter. 'Ada Wong' was just a name she could take off and throw away. Identities weren't meant to cling to her.

 _And yet, here we are. Being 'domestic'._ It was a scene made of smoke and any harsh movement on her part could dissipate it.

She'd have to leave, eventually.

_I'll have to kill him. Eventually._

Wesker was right. Complications, like wounds, shouldn't be allowed to rot. Best to burn it all away.

_And how's that working out for you? Mr I Have An Obsession With My Former Subordinate?_

She'd come so close to being free after Raccoon City. A hospital was so very easy to break into. A white coat, a stethoscope, a clipboard. No one ever questions a woman who looks as though she belongs.

Hospitals are an easy place to die.

She could've done it then. Should have done it then. She should've taken the shot in Raccoon City, before everything about her feelings became too complicated.

She could've done it at any point in Spain, just as she'd been ordered.  At any point in the years following Raccoon City, where she'd made herself believe she was just looking out for her own safety.

How long had she managed to keep believing in her own lie? A year? A day?

There's only so many times a woman can tell herself 'I'm just keeping an eye on him. I just want to make sure he doesn't say anything he shouldn't' before she can't stand the stench of her own bullshit.

Again and again and again she told herself the same lie.

That it would be easy.

It would be easy now. Her free hand was playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, an intimate, affectionate gesture. She had a knife hidden up her sleeve. One stab to the base of the neck and he wouldn't even feel it.  Probably.

_But I would._

So many opportunities came and went and still she kept lying. Kept pretending she could stop being Ada Wong - his Ada. She'd met someone who made her want to be a better person and it was hell.

A conscience was a terrible thing for an assassin to acquire.

"How are you feeling?" she asks, desperate to saying anything to break the silence, and the sound of her own thoughts. "No ill effects from Spain?" The look Leon gives her tells Ada that he's trying to figure out what her game is.

 _No game_ she wants to tell him.  But she knows he won't believe that she genuine in her concern for him.

(but he's right to be suspicious, a part of her reasons. Her employers were lacking in intel on the effects of removing a Plaga from a host. The fact she knew two living subjects had accidently been left out of her reports.)

"I'm doing just fine. How does Wesker like his new parasite?"

The sting of the question hurts, but Ada answers with a smile.

"He doesn't, I'd expect." If he'd asked at any other time she would've brushed off his question with a non answer.  But this was a night of rebirth, and honesty. "He somehow ended up with the wrong sample. Completely useless to his work, or so I assume."

"Should I be jealous you're betraying other men behind my back?"

It takes her a moment, a fraction of one, to realise that he's joking with her. She matches his tone with her reply,

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise we were exclusive."  Ada managed to maintain her deadpan poise until she make the mistake of meeting Leon's eyes, and neither of them had any defense against the sudden burst of laughter.

"Wesker would've stabbed me in the back sooner or later," Ada continued, when they were both composed again (or composed as they could be given the significant decrease in the level of vodka left.) "I just got there first."

"Is there anyone you actually trust?" Leon asked her.

"Just one. I doubt he feels the same way."

More time passes. The silence is comfortable now.

 

"Why didn't you tell me you were still alive?"

This is a night for honesty, but Ada would still like to keep some secrets. She searches for an answer as honest as she can give him.

Fear? A good reason. She had been afraid.

( _of what?_ she asks herself. _Afraid for Leon's safety, or just afraid he'd reject the real you?_ )

Guilt? It's not like she had a shortage of guilt. A plausible reason.

Pride? Probably.

"I hoped you'd forget about me," An honest answer from a liar. "It was just one night."

"Yeah. And yet here we are."

She feels Leon's arm tighen around her, as though he's scared she'll fall again.

"Mmm, here we are."

His kiss tastes of the same vodka they've been drinking all evening, and she finds she doesn't mind it so much now.

 

It can't last. Ada knows that. Leon must know that. But for one night they can pretend.

 

When morning comes, Leon awakes alone in his bed. There's only the faint smell of perfume on the other pillow, and a trace of lipstick on the neck of a now empty bottle that hints anyone else was there at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendship Ended With Expensive Wine. Now Cheap Vodka That Tastes Like Kissing Leon Is My Best Friend - Ada Wong, probably.


End file.
